The impact of Radial and Non-Radial IMF on the Earth's Magnetopause
Size, Shape, and Dawn-Dusk Asymmetry from Global 3D Kinetic Simulations.
Abstract
The boundary between the solar wind (SW) and the Earths magnetosphere,
the magnetopause (MP), is highly dynamic. Its location and shape depend
on SW dynamic pressure and interplanetary magnetic field (IMF)
orientation. We use a 3D kinetic Particle-In-Cell code (IAPIC) to
simulate an event observed by THEMIS spacecraft on July 16, 2007. We
investigate the impact of radial (θBx=0◦) and non-radial (θBx=50◦) IMF
on the shape and size of Earths MP for a dipole tilt of 31◦ using
maximum density gradient and pressure balance methods. Using the Shue
model as a reference (MP at 10.3 RE), we find that for non-radial IMF
the MP expands by 1.4 and 1.7RE along the the Sun-Earth (OX) and tilted
magnetic equatorial (Tilt) axes, respectively, and it expands by 0.5 and
1.6RE for radial IMF along the same respective axes. When the effect of
backstreaming ions is removed from the bulk flow, the expansion ranges
are 1.0 and 1.3RE and 0.2, and 1.2RE, respectively. It is found that the
percentage of backstreaming to bulk flow ions are 16.5% and 20% for
radial and non-radial IMF. We also show that when the backstreaming ions
are not identified, up to 40% of the observed expansion that is due to
backstreaming particles can be inadvertently attributed to a change in
the SW upstream properties. Finally, we quantified the temperature
anisotropy in the magnetosheath, and observe a strong dawn-dusk
asymmetry in the MP location, being more extended on the duskside than
on the dawnside.